Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe (11 page)

Image 13
– Orion-II with its rings stowed, orbiting the black hole, a
singularity bends both time and space.

(credits and details on the final page)

Tensions were running high inside
the Orion-II. They had jumped; they were no longer in the Draco Galaxy. They
were no longer near the black hole in Andromeda. And they were no longer in
that immense void, far away from any galaxy, millions of light years away.

It seemed that they were home. “Is
that the sun? We’re back!” Allison exclaimed.

Inside the ship, they all
celebrated, unfastening their seatbelts to hug one another. They shouted with
joy; they had finally made it back to the region close to Earth. They were
overcome with happiness and moved to tears when the telescope, operated by
Allison, projected an image of Earth on the main monitor.

After the first few seconds, they
remembered they were still traveling at a very high speed. Allison started
calculating their exact position, scanning space and using the stars to
triangulate their location.

“Houston, this is Commander Scott
Russell, Orion-II. Do you copy?”

He smiled as he waited for a
reply.

“Houston, this is Orion-II. Do
you copy?”

Silence.

“I repeat, this is Commander
Russell, Orion-II, Stellarium-12 mission. Do you copy?”

Five minutes later, still no
response from NASA.

“Is there a problem with our radio?”
Allison asked.

“I don’t think so,” Frank
responded. “The computer analysis says it’s working. Plus, I’m getting a
reading from the Communication Module that we left here before the first jump.”

“Is the module close by?” Russell
asked.

“I doubt it. I can’t get a visual
on it... and that module was made to communicate with Earth, so it has a long
range. I’m sure it’s lost in space by now, but we’re still getting readings
from it. That means that our systems are working,” Frank clarified.

“Houston, this is Orion-II. Do
you copy?” Russell tried once more.

“Guys, since we can’t get them to
respond, we better focus on reducing our speed. We're moving away from Earth.
We’ve got to do this fast,” Allison said.

“How fast are we going?” Russell
asked.

“Twice as fast as we were when we
got here. Almost 50,000 miles per hour,” replied Frank.

“Okay, we don’t have enough fuel
left to change directions,” said the commander, looking at the crew.

They were all silent for a
moment.

“But I have an idea,” Russell said.
“I need you to listen and let me know if it’s too crazy.”

“Get on with it,” said Frank.

“This is what I’m thinking: when
we created the first wormhole and jumped for the first time, our Communication
Module—which was 300 yards away from the ship—had to activate its thrust so it
wouldn’t be pulled toward us, right?”

“Right,” the other two answered.

“I think we should activate the
accelerator and create a new wormhole,” Russell said.

“What? You want to jump again?”
Frank asked.

Allison remained quiet and pensive,
as she started to understand what Russell wanted to do.

“No! I think we should activate
the accelerator and then disconnect the module. Since the module with the rings
is much heavier than the rest of the Orion-II, due to the conservation of
momentum, it would start going a bit slower than us. Then, after traveling a
certain distance, which I hope is sufficient, the countdown would get to its
final three minutes, transforming the ring module into a mini black hole. That
way, again, due to the conservation of—well, you guys get it—the other module
would practically come to a halt, pulling us in with its gravity, just like the
asteroids were pulled toward us. And that would cause us to stop,” Russell
explained.

“That’s true, Russell. That could
actually work,” Allison responded. “We just have to do the calculations to make
sure that we won’t crash into it, and to see if that will be enough to make us
stop.”

“But what will happen with the Accelerator
Module after that? Is it going to jump somewhere?” Frank asked.

“That doesn’t matter. We don’t
need to jump again, nor do we need to create any more wormholes. We’re just
going to travel home. It doesn’t matter whether the module jumps somewhere, or
whether it’s simply left floating in space,” Russell emphasized.

“Okay, and the module only has
enough energy for one more jump, anyway. We just need it to create a mini black
hole that will give us enough time to stop,” said Frank.

“Guys, I did the math. I’ve
calculated the Orion-II’s mass without the module, as well as the mass of the
module itself. I still have to check everything on the computer, but it seems
like if we increase those final three minutes to five, we should be able to
bring the Orion-II to a complete halt,” Allison announced.

“Allison, that’s perfect! Check
the calculations so we can proceed. Meanwhile, Frank, we’re going to need you
to reconfigure the module’s algorithm again, adding on an extra two minutes,”
said Russell.

For the next 20 minutes, they all
focused on their respective tasks. During that time, Russell continued
attempting to communicate with NASA, in vain. He wasn’t able to get a single
response.

Shortly thereafter, everything
was set and ready to go. They initiated the procedure. The first step was to
start the countdown, which would now start from 14:00, since they had added an
additional two minutes.

As soon as the timer began to
tick, Russell initiated the undocking process.

“Confirmed, Accelerator Module
disconnecting and moving away. I have a visual of the rings on camera two,” the
commander said.

They all watched as the countdown
got closer to zero, while simultaneously checking the camera to see what would
happen with the module.

There were five minutes left. The
module was approximately one and a half miles away from the Orion-II. The
camera was operating at maximum zoom, allowing them to see the distorted light
around the rings. They all felt relieved that they weren’t trapped inside the module,
and that they wouldn’t be jumping through any more wormholes.
A
few moments later, they started to feel a strong deceleration. Russell had
turned the ship so that they would be able to use their backs and thus endure
the force better. They were being attracted by the rings, a force which was
slowly stopping the ship.

On the camera, they could see how
quickly they were moving toward the module. There wasn’t much they could do.
They stared at the monitor as they got closer and closer. In the final seconds,
it was clear that they were going to collide. “Prepare for collision,” the
commander yelled. They all grabbed on and closed their eyes, expecting the
worst.

But nothing happened. They opened
their eyes to see that the module had jumped. There was no collision. If it
hadn’t jumped, it’s likely that neither the module nor the Orion-II would have
made it out in one piece.

“That was a close one. Allison,
can you check how fast we’re going?” Russell asked, relieved.

The computer was calculating
their speed using the most up-to-date information from the telescope. The
astronomer didn’t have an answer yet. Frank was still in shock, trying to
process the fact that they had almost died in an extremely stupid way, finally so
close to home.

“We’re moving away from Earth,
but at a speed of less than 60 miles per hour!”

“That’s great! And we’re still at
4% fuel, which I think is enough to get us to the Space Station (ISS),” the
commander exclaimed.

“Now, we just have to contact
NASA. We won’t be able to get there without their guidance, especially given
our low fuel level,” Frank said.

“Houston, this is Commander Scott
Russell, Orion-II. Do you copy?”

Once again, there was nothing but
discouraging silence, which they were starting to get used to.

“Houston, we’ve had a lot of
problems on this mission, but we’ve managed to return from the Draco Galaxy. We
were moving away from Earth, but we managed to stop the ship by getting rid of
the Accelerator Module and creating a mini black hole. We are approximately
three times the distance between the Earth and the moon away, floating in
space. Fuel at 4%, oxygen at 43%. We can’t hear anything. DO YOU COPY?” Russell
shouted desperately at the end of his message.

Just as with all of his previous
attempts, there was no response. It had been eight hours, and the crew’s
situation hadn’t changed much.

That’s when, in a moment of
enlightenment, Frank made a relatively simple suggestion:

“Russell, NASA was expecting us
to be back five days after the jump. But, according to what Allison said, more
than a year may have gone by here on Earth. Maybe they disabled the frequency
that we used for the Stellarium program.”

“You’re right, Frank. Let’s try a
different one. One of these manuals has the frequency of the Space Station. I’m
sure it hasn’t changed,” said Russell.

They all started to flip through
the manuals. Allison found the frequency they were looking for, and Frank
quickly made the adjustment on the communicator. Their goal was to establish
contact on the same radio frequency that the ISS used to communicate with
Earth.

“ISS, or Houston, this is
Commander Scott Russell, Orion-II. Do you copy?”

They all sat in silence,
concentrating solely on the buzzing sound coming from the communicator, as they
anxiously awaited any type of response. Then, suddenly:

“ISS, this is Houston. Please
repeat.”

“Houston, this is astronaut John
Miller, ISS. We got the message as well. It didn’t come from the ISS. I confirm
that it did not come from the ISS.”

The ship is overcome with joy.
Both Houston and the ISS had responded, despite the fact that they both thought
they were communicating with each other.

That’s when Russell sent out
another message:

“Houston, ISS, it’s great to hear
you both! This is Commander Scott Russell, Orion-II. Do you copy?”

Once again, silence. This time,
it lasted for more than two minutes. Russell made another attempt at
communicating. Then, a message came through…

“This is Walter Smith, Flight
Control Director at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. You are using a
restricted frequency. Please stop transmitting. I repeat, stop transmitting.
This is a restricted NASA frequency; by interfering with it, you are breaking
federal law.”

“Houston, this is Commander
Russell. I’m transmitting from the Orion-II. We tried to transmit via the
Stellarium frequency, but we didn’t get a response. That’s why we are using the
ISS frequency.”

At that point, a young controller
called Smith over to his monitor.

“Well, we were able to trace the
transmission. This communication isn’t coming from Earth.”

“That’s not possible. Which
satellite is it being retransmitted from?” the director asked.

“It isn’t. This signal is coming from
open space. It’s not coming from the ISS either, because the station is on the
other side of Earth right now; if it were coming from there, we would be
receiving the transmission from at least two satellites. So, this isn’t a
hacker... unless he’s in space.”

The director was silent for a few
moments. “It can’t really be the Orion-II,” he thought. “It can’t be
Stellarium-12,” he repeated out loud, audible to those around him.

“Can you wake Dr. Jones up? He’s
the one who headed flight control for the Stellarium mission…” Smith asked.

After giving the order, Smith
asked his team to activate radio communications with the Stellarium Space
Program. If the message had really come from the Orion-II, the crew would be
able to communicate via that frequency, thus eliminating the possibility of
fraud once and for all.

Everyone at the control center
was in shock, in silence. They didn't know what to do. Few of them had any
detailed information on the Stellarium program. They knew what it was about,
but they didn’t understand the magnitude of what was happening. First of all,
the Stellarium program had ended. As far as they knew, the crew onboard the
Orion-II was dead. It could just be a simple prank... but what if it was real?

“Meanwhile, let me talk to them,”
said the director as he put on his headphones.